Psychiatric ward experience

I've newly joined this forum although I have been following posts for a while.

I was wondering how many people have had the experience of being internalised into a mental ward? It happened to me recently and it wasn't a very fun experience. I suffered from auditory and visual hallucinations as well as some caustic paranoid dellusions. I've been stabilised on antipsychotic medication and am doing much better after leaving the hospital.

I was not diagnosed whilst in the mental ward. All I was told was that I suffered from a polymorphic psychosis. I am not certain if I suffer from schizoid personality disorder but I definitely exhibit a lot of the traits. I know a lot of you might jump to the gun and say I'm schizophrenic. I honestly don't think I fit that diagnosis since I'm generally stable with the exception of that one-time episode.

I have read somewhere that schizoids can be prone to sparring psychotic or nervous breakdown without any longterm symptoms. What do you think?

Your experience sounds interesting. Did they give you a diagnosis while you were there? I was in an adolescent psychiatric hospital when I was 17. They thought I was possibly bipolar. I never had this officially confirmed by a doctor, but I think the SSRIs I was on were the cause of my psychosis. I suffered mostly from delusions, but also had some auditory hallucinations. They went away when I stopped taking the SSRIs. I was also extremely irritable and sometimes aggressive.

I suppose anything is possible. Your experience sounds serious enough that you should talk to a doctor. Do you know why you suffered a psychotic episode?

edit: I can't spell words today.

yeah as far as i know schizoids are more prone to developing schizophrenia. they share negative symptoms to begin with, and if, for example, when they experience stress much more than they can handle, its highly possible for schizoids to develop full-blown schizophrenia. however, it doesn't occur that often. in general, most schizoids are still in touch with reality 100%. hard to explain but the phase is still different

honestly i can't tell if you suffer from psychotic disorder or it was the nervous breakdown in SPD that you experienced in the past (not that i am allowed to do so) but personally, i absolutely agree with slimsally, it would be best to talk to a doctor (that trained in MH field ofcourse) because your experience does really sound serious, esp if you hardly function due to those symptoms until now and it would be helpful if you explain everything to them, which of schizoids traits that are most troubling to you, and why do you think you don't fit schizophrenia diagnosis, and so on

fdarkmatter wrote:schizoids are more prone to developing schizophrenia.

Are they? My understanding is that SPD, on its own (I stress this point), is no more likely to develop into schizophrenia than among a random sample, nor are they more likely to have psychotic episodes (not the same thing).
Referring to the thread, I have no experience of psychiatric wards per se, but I did spend over two years at a secure residential therapeutic community.

Completely irrelevant aside - I just beat a Valdimir Putin of Russia at on-line chess! Yay!

UK SPD wrote:Are they?

i don't know. i heard that from an SPD expert i know, also according to what i once read, not based on my own experience and i also said that it usually doesn't occur,etc. but you may be right

SPD doesn't develop into schizophrenia but people w SPD are more likely to also have schizophrenia (we're also at increased risk for major depression, substance use diaorders, & a number of anxiety and personality disorders.) This could just be because having greater psychological distress increases risk & not because of any factors specific to SPD.

slimsally wrote:Your experience sounds interesting. Did they give you a diagnosis while you were there? I was in an adolescent psychiatric hospital when I was 17. They thought I was possibly bipolar. I never had this officially confirmed by a doctor, but I think the SSRIs I was on were the cause of my psychosis. I suffered mostly from delusions, but also had some auditory hallucinations. They went away when I stopped taking the SSRIs. I was also extremely irritable and sometimes aggressive.

I suppose anything is possible. Your experience sounds serious enough that you should talk to a doctor. Do you know why you suffered a psychotic episode?

edit: I can't spell words today.

I didn't receive any diagnosis whilst in the ward. All they said to me was that I had a polymorphic psychosis. I was also transiently in and out of dellusional paranoia. I started to believe that I was accused of terrorism and that I was going to be captured and tortured. Or that the whole ward was trying to farm me for organs and such horrible dellusions. I ended up trying to kill myself due to the paranoia (better die than be tortured) .

I still believe some of the medication I was given contributed to this hightened state, in addition of course to the type of people who were interned there. Some of them seemed quite aggressive. It even said on the official site of the ward that some patients suffer from antisocial personality disorder and a lot of them were doing drugs or dealing them.

I'm not too sure what my trigger was but I remember having some emotional issues at the time that were being actively repressed and some serious lack of sleep. I am seeing a psychologist at the moment to get to the bottom of it all.

PerplexedMan wrote:I didn't receive any diagnosis whilst in the ward. All they said to me was that I had a polymorphic psychosis. I was also transiently in and out of dellusional paranoia. I started to believe that I was accused of terrorism and that I was going to be captured and tortured. Or that the whole ward was trying to farm me for organs and such horrible dellusions. I ended up trying to kill myself due to the paranoia (better die than be tortured) .

I had to look up “polymorphic psychosis.” Brief Psychotic Disorder. Your delusions sound like they were really scary. That sounds so horrible...I’m glad you’re out of it now. My delusions were more grandiose. I thought I was a prophet or, on especially grandiose days, the son of God. I thought my moods dictated the weather. I thought the government was following me and that everyone knew who I was. I also thought people were trying to poison me. Led to a lot of weight loss because I didn’t trust most foods. I also thought my water pipes were rigged with acid (if that makes any sense), so I showered infrequently as well. Weird to think about now as I’ve never experienced anything like that again, and it’s been over 10 years. That’s why I think it was the SSRIs.

PerplexedMan wrote:I still believe some of the medication I was given contributed to this hightened state, in addition of course to the type of people who were interned there. Some of them seemed quite aggressive. It even said on the official site of the ward that some patients suffer from antisocial personality disorder and a lot of them were doing drugs or dealing them.

You think meds initially made you more paranoid? When I was on the ward, at least half of the people there were there for substance abuse. I thought it was odd they were in a psychiatric hospital for that. And you know from your experience how irritable addicts without their fix can get, so I can see how that made you more paranoid.

PerplexedMan wrote:I'm not too sure what my trigger was but I remember having some emotional issues at the time that were being actively repressed and some serious lack of sleep. I am seeing a psychologist at the moment to get to the bottom of it all.

I hope you'll get back to your old self soon. It sounds like you're doing all the right things and, with any luck, this will be a one-time experience.

Grandiose dellusions? That's really interesting. Did you try to preach some sort of message or communicate this fact to people or was it just something you experienced? Also, may I ask which SSRI's you were on?

I was shocked to know by way of the psychiatrists that respiradone can cause dellusions and hallucinations. I mean if I am already to suffer from these how is this side effect supposed to help me?

Another thing they put me on was aripriprazole. This is the nastiest pill I have ever taken and would recommend anyone being offered this to seek other alternatives. Severe insomnia, irritability and weakness.

I had what was called a psychotic breakdown over four years ago, in which I committed a crime with the hope of being sent to prison (reasons complex, but boil down to wanting to retreat into a hole while also wanting to be punished - a form of self-harm or pseudo-suicide, I've been told).
I then spent just under three years in a secure establishment called Grendon, where group therapy was the main tool (look it up, it's part of the prison system in the UK, and an interesting place).
However, I wasn't given any psychiatric medicine, presumably because I appeared perfectly lucid (indeed, I may have been - how does one know?).
I was given anti-depressants for a while twelve years ago, but I didn't notice any effect - I was probably not really depressed at the time anyway.
I'm pretty sure that none of the recreational drugs that I've taken in my life ever effected me psychotically, or otherwise did more than they were supposed to.